


Lookout in the Blackout

by lbmisscharlie



Category: Bletchley Circle
Genre: Blackouts, Flashbacks, Gen, Prompt Fic, WW2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-14
Updated: 2013-09-14
Packaged: 2017-12-26 12:54:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/966164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lbmisscharlie/pseuds/lbmisscharlie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All those years, moving around cautiously in the blackouts; the ubiquitous posters reminding them not to trust their vision for the first fifteen seconds, to keep their torches aimed down, to look and look again before stepping off a kerb or disembarking a bus. The shimmer of fear in their veins; the rumble of bombs. It persisted.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lookout in the Blackout

**Author's Note:**

  * For [reckonedrightly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/reckonedrightly/gifts).



> For a follower fic fest at tumblr, this work is for this [prompt](http://lbmisscharlie.tumblr.com/post/60731725338/picture-me-stumbling-in-wild-eyed-hopefully-im-not) from [reckonedrightly](http://reckonedrightly.tumblr.com): _Bletchley Circle, any characters which take your fancy, based off your choice of WWII Allied propaganda posters and/or advisory slogans, whether it's 'keep calm and carry on', 'count to fifteen before walking in the blackout', 'this man is your friend'—anything you like._

It was still instinct, even years later, to shine her torch only at the ground. All those years, moving around cautiously in the blackouts; the ubiquitous posters reminding them not to trust their vision for the first fifteen seconds, to keep their torches aimed down, to look and look again before stepping off a kerb or disembarking a bus. The shimmer of fear in their veins; the rumble of bombs. It persisted.

So she did for the first few, terrifying seconds that they stepped into that abandoned shaft; shone her light at her feet before she remembered that keeping her head down wouldn’t save her from whatever danger lurked in that darkness. 

Susan led their way, even though she didn’t feel like their leader. Not like Millie, brash and impulsive, or Jean, wise and secure. Not even like Lucy, whose careful mind led them more than once, its timetables perfect, its maps precise. But she was the creator of this dreadful idea, and it was her charge to see through.

There had been a moment – or perhaps several, really: sitting across from Millie in that café; walking into her sitting room to see her friends’ expectant faces; shoving open that creaking metal door to take the first steps into darkness – when she had, with great and paralyzing fear, wondered if she would be responsible for something awful. For shattering them apart.

She thought it again when Lucy stepped off the train, and once more when she arrived at Millie’s battered and bruised. By that point, though – they’d waited their fifteen seconds; they were in the blackout, well and truly. 

The blackouts at Bletchley were quiet, tense, but nothing like those when she’d been in London, before being recruited. She’d shared a flat with a girl from Surrey, who would clench her hand, hard, as they walked to the shelter together, fear rolling off of her in waves. The shelter felt too shallow, the air too thin. Or sometimes she’d be caught out, have to weather the night in the tube, where the platforms stretched for seeming miles, people on every inch.

Not at all like everyone lived, of course; there had been that one night in – ‘44 it was – when they’d gotten leave together, the four of them, and come down to London. It was rare: two day’s leave in a row, never mind all four of them at once. Susan suspected Millie – and Millie’s charm, and Millie’s connections – might have helped. 

She’d always been good at that; Susan admired her for it. Not the black market pish especially, but the way Millie had of knowing: what people needed, what they wanted. How to offer her kindness generously, and without cost. Susan felt miserly when faced with Millie’s largesse.

The train had taken eons, delays at every station, but finally they’d reached London, where they took a taxi to Millie’s cousin’s flat, a tiny place, but with enough room for them to primp. Millie had produced a bottle of wine from god-knows-where, which had gone a long way to warming Jean – and Susan, if she was being honest – to the idea.

Finally, after a supper of sardine sandwiches not nearly as fine as the wine, they’d departed. It was still light then – wartime hours – and when Millie had led them to a back-alley door and wrenched it open, Jazz music had spilled out into the streets, notes like the warm crimson of the setting sun. 

Inside had been everything the blackouts weren’t. All-enveloping, just like the dark, but music and warmth and sheer human joy pressing in on every sense: jazz and the smell of whiskey and women’s perfume, the tangy salt of sweat in the air, silk and beads from ’36, ’37, heels worn to the quick with dancing and repaired, once and again. 

Susan had drunk bourbon and danced in Millie’s arms, her sweat-slick elbows sticking to Millie’s gown, and her mouth just at Millie’s shoulder, where she left a crimson streak of lipstick once, in a too-quick twirl. Jean had danced once, a jitterbug, before stepping aside to hold their handbags and sip at a tonic and lime. Susan wondered if Jean had left off the alcohol to savor the rare treat of a fresh lime slice.

Lucy had twirled with two soldiers in a row before Susan saved her from the third, then passed herself between Millie and Susan, her girlish mouth twisted up in a perpetual grin. 

They’d stayed there the whole night through, and when they emerged, it was like the blackout had never happened. The sky above them opened a bright, pearly pink, and the air had the edge of a night-time rain shower. On the way to Millie’s cousin’s flat, feet aching but spirits high, they had linked arms and walked together, down the center of the empty road, while London woke and emerged from the darkness around them.

Now she wondered if it would awake; if it would crawl out of its grimness and its dark, leftover shadows and be grand once more. They were now in the middle of some new, fresh war, and the rules were less clear. No posters, no pamphlets, no helpful hints: just them, alone in the blackout, waiting for their eyes to adjust.


End file.
